The Mask of Mirrors, M. Carrick; [best books to read in your 20s .txt] 📗

And Ren flung herself backward, clawing her next-to-last knife from the shawl and snapping it directly at the old hag with an underhand throw.

Gammer Lindworm slanted out of the way, impossibly fast. The knife stuck quivering in the age-softened boards of the wall behind. Ren tried to lurch to her feet, but before she could get them under her, Gammer Lindworm’s arms locked around her body and that fetid breath hissed in her ear. “Naughty Renyi. You don’t get away that easily. No, you’re going to come with me, to start paying for what you’ve done. And once I’ve got you safely stowed, I’ll collect the other two.”

Ren opened her mouth to scream, but the world unraveled around her, just like it had done on the Night of Hells, and the lodging house was gone.

22

Two Roads Cross

Westbridge and Lacewater: Cyprilun 35

Half the night canvassing the Lower Bank, and no sign of the black powder. Up all night, for no good reason, and then for breakfast Sedge got a tirade from Vargo. The man hated it when he couldn’t just pull strings and make things happen.

Now it was midmorning, and all Sedge really wanted was sleep. But he didn’t know whether Vargo would tell Ren they’d tracked down Quientis’s missing saltpeter, given that they’d lost it again right after, and Sedge figured she deserved to know. So he forced his tired feet back toward Westbridge, through streets being swept clean of debris, to Ren’s townhouse—

Whose front windows were stove clean in. Ranislav’s gonna bleed for that, Sedge thought, staring at the splintered frames and shards of glass. He was supposed to make sure none of Vargo’s property got damaged.

But to hell with the house. What about Ren and Tess?

He shot down the half stairs to the cellar and pounded on the door, the rhythm that would tell his sisters it was him. The door opened before he could finish the pattern, Tess red-eyed and nest-haired. “It’s about ti— Where’s Renata?” She shoved him aside, as though Ren might be hiding behind him.

Renata, not Ren. The reason became obvious when the door swung wider, revealing a worried-looking Giuna Traementis. He’d heard that she knew about Ren’s poverty, but the sight of her in the kitchen—the place that was supposed to be their hidden base, safe from outsiders’ eyes—jolted him.

“She en’t here?” He felt ill, a thousand times worse than when Vargo had given him the slip.

“Tess said she left to meet you,” Giuna said accusingly.

At Sedge’s blank look, Tess pulled a crumpled fold of paper from her pocket. “Because of this? The note you sent.”

Sedge’s heart skipped a beat. “I din’t send no note.”

A glance at the shaky text was enough for Sedge to know it weren’t from Vargo, nor anyone Sedge knew. But it was someone who knew them.

Giuna was craning her neck, trying to read the note. Sedge crumpled it again before she could. Lodging house, escape window—it wouldn’t mean anything to the alta, but better not to risk questions, especially when he didn’t know what Tess had said already.

Who could have sent it? A few other Fingers were still kicking around the Old Island, and Simlin broke bones for one of the Stretsko gangs down in Dockwall when he weren’t numbing his own hurts with aža dreams. But nobody had ever returned to the house after Ondrakja’s death. Better to sleep rough than return to a nightmare.

And none of the Fingers would have asked a knot-cutting traitor like Ren to meet them at the lodging house, even if they knew she was alive.

Only one person would.

“Ondrakja’s got her.”

The name slipped out before he could think better of it. He wasn’t Ren, always in control of his tongue. Tess clapped both hands to her mouth, a whimper dying in her throat. Fear was something you stayed silent about if you didn’t want it to get you. They all carried those lessons with them, in different ways.

Baffled, Giuna said, “Who’s Ondrakja?”

Sedge and Tess exchanged helpless looks. What could they say? A Primordial demon in human form. “Somebody working for Indestor,” Sedge offered at last.

Giuna stiffened in fury. “He’s kidnapped her? That kinless—Lumen burn him to ash! I’ll tell the V—” Her anger stuttered as she realized the Vigil would be no help, but then flared back up. “Captain Serrado. Mother can contact him. He’ll know what to do.”

“You do that,” Sedge said, and Tess echoed him, all but shoving the Traementis alta out the door. Giuna hesitated on the threshold, looking inexplicably guilty. “I’ll get her back,” she promised.

Sedge’s muscles were knotting tighter with every moment Giuna stayed. He jerked his head in what he hoped looked like acknowledgment. The instant she was out of earshot, he muttered to Tess, “Get back inside. I’ll check the lodging house.” By the redness of Tess’s eyes, it had been hours since Ren left.

“Oh, no. I’m done with being left to wait and worry.” Tess tossed her woolen over her shoulders and reached to close the door.

Sedge stopped it with one hand. “What if she’s baiting us in? Wants all three of us, and we’re just handing ourselves to her?” Ondrakja had used them to hurt each other before.

Digging into a basket by the hearth, Tess drew forth a needle, longer than Sedge’s forearm and thick as his little finger. She held it up like a dagger. “Then I poke her full of holes. If everything goes twisted, I can run for help.”

En’t like she’s gonna be safe alone here, with the windows done in and Ondrakja who knows where. He’d rather have Tess where he could protect her. “Let’s go,” Sedge said.

He hadn’t been back to the lodging house since the day Ondrakja did her best to beat him to death, but he could have found his way blindfolded. He didn’t bother with the escape window, though; no chance he could fit through it anymore. Instead he kicked the front door in.

And